If we had an aggressive,
independent press corps in the United States, our national conversation
about the terrorist attacks that demolished the World Trade Center towers
in New York and damaged the Pentagon would be far more probing and informative.
Here are some examples of questions that reporters ought to be asking President
Bush:

1. Before the attacks in New York
and Washington, your administration quietly tolerated Saudi Arabian and
Pakistani military and financial aid for the Taliban regime, even though
it harbored terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. But now you say fighting
terrorism will be the main focus of your administration. By making counter-terrorism
the top priority in bilateral relations, arenít you signaling to abusive
governments in Sudan, Indonesia, Turkey, and elsewhere that they need not
worry much about their human rights performance as long as they join Americaís
anti-terrorist crusade? Will you barter human rights violations like corporations
trade pollution credits? Will you condone, for example, the brutalization
of Chechnya in exchange for Russian participation in the "war against terrorism"?
Or will you send a message loud and clear to Americaís allies that they
must not use the fight against terrorism as a cover for waging repressive
campaigns that smother democratic aspirations in their own countries?

2. Terrorists finance their operations
by laundering money through offshore banks and other hot money outlets.
Yet your administration has undermined international efforts to crack down
on tax havens. Last May, you withdrew support for a comprehensive initiative
launched by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD),
which sought greater transparency in tax and banking practices. In the
wake of the September 11 massacre, will you reassess this decision and
support the OECD proposal, even if it means displeasing wealthy Americans
and campaign contributors who avoid paying taxes by hiding money in offshore
accounts?

3. Four months ago, U.S. officials
announced that Washington was giving $43 million to the Taliban for its
role in reducing the cultivation of opium poppies, despite the Talibanís
heinous human rights record and its sheltering of Islamic terrorists of
many nationalities. Doesnít this make the U.S. government guilty of supporting
a country that harbors terrorists? Do you think your obsession with the
"war on drugs" has distorted U.S. foreign policy in Southwest Asia and
other regions?

4. According to U.S., German, and
Russian intelligence sources, Osama bin Ladenís operatives have been trying
to acquire enriched uranium and other weapons-grade radioactive materials
for a nuclear bomb. There are reports that in 1993 bin Ladenís well-financed
organization tried to buy enriched uranium from poorly maintained Russian
facilities that lacked sufficient controls. Why has your administration
proposed cutting funds for a program to help safeguard nuclear materials
in the former Soviet Union?

5. On September 23rd, you announced
plans to make public a detailed analysis of the evidence gathered by U.S
intelligence and police agencies, which proves that Osama bin Laden and
his cohorts are guilty of the terrorist attacks in New York and the Pentagon.
But the next day your administration backpedaled. "As we look through [the
evidence]," explained Secretary of State Colin Powell, "we can find areas
that are unclassified and it will allow us to share this information with
the public. But most of it is classified." Please explain this sudden flip-flop.
How can we believe what you say about fighting terrorism if your administration
canít make its case publicly with sufficient evidence? How do you expect
to win the support of governments and people who otherwise might suspect
Washingtonís motives, particularly some Muslim and Arab nations?

6. Exactly who is a terrorist, and
who is not? When the CIA was busy doling out an estimated $2 billion to
support the Afghan mujahadeen in the 1980s, Osama bin Laden and his colleagues
were hailed as anti-communist freedom fighters. During the cold war, U.S.
national security strategists, many of whom are riding top saddle once
again in your administration, didnít view bin Ladenís fanatical religious
beliefs as diametrically opposed to western civilization. But now bin Laden
and his ilk are unabashed terrorists. Definitions of what constitutes terror
and terrorism seem to change with the times. Before he became vice president,
Dick Cheney and the U.S. State Department denounced Nelson Mandela, leader
of the African National Congress, as a terrorist. Today Mandela, South
Africaís president emeritus, is considered a great and dignified statesman.
And what about Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who bears significant
responsibility for the 1982 massacre of 1,800 innocents at the Sabra and
Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon. What role will Sharon play in your crusade
against international terrorism?

7. Thereís been a lot of talk lately
about unshackling the CIA and lifting the alleged ban on CIA assassinations.
Many U.S. officials attribute the CIA ís inability to thwart the terrorist
attacks in New York and Washington to rules that supposedly have prohibited
the CIA from utilizing gangsters, death squad leaders, and other "unsavory"
characters as sources and assets. Why donít you set the record straight,
Mr. President, and acknowledge there were always gaping loopholes in these
rules, which allowed such activity to continue unabated? Itís precisely
this sort of dubious activity ­ enlisting unsavory characters to advance
U.S. foreign policy objectives ­ that set the stage for tragic events
on September 11th. Itís hardly a secret that the CIA trained and financed
Islamic extremists to topple the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. Some
of the same extremists supported by the CIA, most notably bin Laden, have
since turned their psychotic wrath against the United States. Instead of
rewarding the CIA with billions of additional dollars to fight terrorism,
shouldnít you hold accountable those shortsighted and perilously naïve
U.S. intelligence officials who ran the covert operation in Afghanistan
that got us into this mess?

8. John Negroponte, the new U.S.
ambassador the United Nations, says he intends to build an international
anti-terrorist coalition. During the mid-1980s, Negroponte was involved
in covering up right-wing death squad activity and other human rights abuses
in Honduras when he served as ambassador to that country. Doesnít Negroponteís
role in aiding and abetting state terrorism in Central America undermine
the moral authority of the United States as it embarks upon a crusade against
international terrorism?

9. The attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon brought home the frightening extent to which U.S.
citizens and installations are vulnerable to terrorist attacks. If terrorists
hit a nuclear power plant, it could result in an enormous public health
disaster. In the interest of protecting national security, why havenít
you ordered the immediate phase-out of the 103 nuclear power plants that
are currently operating in the United States? Why doesnít your administration
emphasize safe, renewable energy alternatives, such as solar and wind power,
which would not invite terrorism?

10. After years of successful lobbying
against rigorous safety procedures, the heads of the airline industry will
receive a multibillion-dollar taxpayer bailout for their ailing companies.
Given your support for the airline rescue package, do you now agree that
letting the free market run its course wonít resolve all our economic and
social problems? (Thatís what anti-globalization activists have been saying
all along.) And if airlines deserve a bail-out, how about a multibillion-dollar
rescue package for human needs like health and education? Why arenít we
bailing out our under-funded public schools, our insolvent hospitals, our
national railroads, and other elements of our dilapidated social infrastructure?

11. September 11th will be remembered
as a day of infamy in the United States because of the terrorist attacks
in New York and Washington. In Chile, September 11th is also remembered
as the day when a U.S.-back coup toppled the democratically elected government
of Salvador Allende in 1973, initiating a reign of terror by General Augusto
Pinochet. Given your administrationís avowed stance against terrorism,
will you cooperate with the various international legal cases that are
honing in on ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for colluding with Pinochetís
murderous regime?

12. You say youíre a loving man,
Mr. President, but you must feel unrequited, for no empire has ever been
loved by its subjugants, and thatís what the USA is ­ an empire. You
talk as though the United States has in no way contributed to the spread
of fanaticism around the globe. As hideous as it might sound, there are
many people on the planet who consider the September 11th attacks a response
­ however twisted or demented ­ to U.S. actions. If the killing
of innocent people in New York and Washington is indefensible, and surely
it is, then why do U.S. officials defend American air strikes that kill
innocent civilians in Iraq, Sudan, Serbia, and Afghanistan? More than 500,000
Iraqi children under age 5 have died as a result of the 1990 Gulf War,
subsequent economic sanctions, and ongoing U.S. bombing raids against Iraq.
Will your planned actions lead to a similar fate for the children of Afghanistan?

13. What will you accomplish if you
bomb Afghanistan? Wouldn't this galvanize Islamic fundamentalist movements
that are already powerful in Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Sudan, the oil-rich
Arab monarchies, and the Balkans? Wouldn't a U.S.-led military onslaught
against Afghanistan be the fastest way to create a new generation of terrorists?
Adept at manipulating real grievances, terrorist networks breed on poverty,
despair, and social injustice. Do you think you can wipe out or even reduce
this scourge, Mr. President, without seriously and systematically addressing
the root causes of terrorism?

Martin A. Lee martinalee17@yahoo.com
is the author of Acid Dreams and The Beast Reawakens. He can be reached
at martinalee117@yahoo.com